Humans propagating, migrating and populating the planet unsustainably is what created HB 2001.

Anyone awake knows the housing market is collapsing as prices rise, whether to own or rent. Nationally, the haves live locally while the have-nots who serve them are forced to live/drive from the outskirts, adding to human-caused climate catastrophe. And it’s only getting worse.

Those who self-righteously campaign for building elsewhere feel entitled, as though immune from circumstances they’ve helped create. Deluded as though they hold a money-back guarantee if life cuckolds them with a karmic dose of unrequited love. 

Reality check: Life can suck, is always changing, and uncontrolled growth is killing us and the planet’s flora and fauna. 

It all begs one question: Why are Americans so fucking selfish? David Graeber and David Wengrow’s The Dawn of Everything is one great answer.

Europeans have lived tightly packed in cozy, common-wall living spaces on narrow cobbled alleys for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Walking to markets with baskets, not bags. You know, the places Americans swoon over when they visit Rick Steves’ Europe? Similarly, San Francisco has very modest-sized walk-ups in the Sunset District, with their granite entries and compact stone-tiered backyards. Highly liveable with a European sensibility. 

Survival of the fittest did not favor intelligence, it favored diversity; and to constantly adjust to the immediate environment. Evolution requires that one either adapt to inevitable change or get left behind. Same goes for any delusions of grandeur.

Sean Doyle

Corvallis